For a while, carbon credits have been presented as Kenya’s next big economic opportunity.
At the 2022 United Nations climate conference in Egypt, President William Ruto declared that Kenya’s next significant export would be carbon credits. The statement amplified excitement around a market that promises to turn forests, farms, grasslands, clean cookstoves and other climate projects into a source of income.
Since then, carbon credits have attracted investors, technology companies, environmental organisations and international corporations. There is now a growing rush to find projects capable of generating credits that can be sold to companies seeking to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions.
The money involved can be attractive.
But the carbon market has also created serious concerns about land, consent and who gets to profit from Africa’s natural resources.
In Kenya’s Maasai-dominated Kajiado County, a carbon project became the subject of a major investigation by Africa Uncensored and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The investigation examined the Kajiado Rangelands Carbon Project and found a complicated dispute involving community land, carbon credits, proposed land subdivision and allegations of land fraud.
The project was linked to plans to introduce land-management practices, including changes to livestock grazing, to increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil underneath the rangelands. The resulting carbon credits could then be sold to companies seeking to compensate for their emissions.
But many young local Maasai residents became suspicious of the arrangement.
Africa Uncensored reported that the project became connected to a proposed subdivision of community land. The investigation found that documents relating to land beneficiaries included names of people and companies whose inclusion was disputed. The investigation also raised questions about how powerful political and business interests could benefit from the process.
In April 2025, Maasai youth disrupted the signing of an agreement connected to the carbon project. What initially appeared to be a disagreement over a climate project became part of a much larger battle over community land, generational power and the future of Maasai pastoralist livelihoods.
Similar concerns have been raised about carbon projects affecting pastoralist communities in Kenya and Tanzania. Critics fear that carbon markets can sometimes create a new way for outsiders to control land that communities have used for generations.
This is why carbon markets deserve to be understood carefully. So what exactly is a carbon market?
What Is a Carbon Credit?
A carbon credit is a certificate representing one metric tonne of carbon dioxide that has either been removed from the atmosphere or prevented from being released to the atmosphere.
A good example is when a company releases a large amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It then pays for a project that claims to remove or prevent an equivalent amount of emissions elsewhere.
The project could be any of the following:
- A forest project may prevent trees from being cut down.
- A clean cooking project may replace charcoal or firewood with cleaner fuel.
- A farmer may adopt agricultural practices that store more carbon in the soil.
- A project may restore mangrove forests to hold more carbon dioxide.
- A grassland project may change grazing practices to increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil.
If the project can prove that it has reduced or removed a certain amount of greenhouse gases, it may receive carbon credits. Those credits can then be sold, and this is the basic idea behind carbon markets.
What Is a Carbon Market?
A carbon market is a system where carbon credits are created, bought and sold. Think of it as a marketplace.
Instead of selling maize, coffee or tea, participants are trading certificates representing verified reductions or removals of greenhouse gases.
There are two broad types of carbon markets.
The voluntary carbon market
This is where companies or individuals voluntarily buy carbon credits.
A company may buy credits because it wants to:
- meet a climate target, in this case a NET-ZERO Emission status;
- compensate for some of its emissions;
- make environmental claims;
- support conservation projects; or
- demonstrate its environmental commitments.
Many Kenyan carbon projects operate in this space.
The compliance carbon market
This is created by law. Governments may require certain companies or industries to reduce their emissions. If they cannot reduce all their emissions directly, they may be allowed to buy approved carbon credits under a regulated system.
Kenya’s carbon market regulations recognise both voluntary and compliance markets.
Why Would Anyone Pay for Carbon Credits?
The answer is that many businesses produce greenhouse gas emissions.
A company may operate:
- factories;
- aircraft;
- trucks;
- power plants;
- data centres; or
- large supply chains.
Reducing all emissions immediately can be difficult or expensive. A company may therefore purchase carbon credits from a project that claims to reduce or remove an equivalent amount of emissions elsewhere readily.
However, this is where an important debate begins.
Buying a carbon credit does not automatically mean that a company has stopped polluting.
Environmental critics argue that companies should first reduce their own emissions rather than simply paying for projects elsewhere. This is one reason carbon credits have become controversial around the world.
How Does a Tree-Planting or Clean-Cooking Project Generate Credits?
A project must show that it is creating a measurable climate benefit. Suppose a project plants trees on land that was previously degraded. As the trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The project may then calculate how much carbon has been stored in the trees and soil. If the reduction or removal is properly measured and verified, the project may generate carbon credits.
Millions of households in Africa still depend on charcoal and firewood. A clean-cooking project may distribute more efficient stoves or alternative fuels. The project may claim that the new technology reduces the amount of wood or charcoal being burned. The estimated emissions savings may then be converted into carbon credits.
Who Buys the Credits?
Carbon credits may be bought by:
- international companies such as Meta, Google, Netflix, and YouTube, by virtue of their running highly emitting data centres;
- airlines;
- financial institutions;
- technology companies;
- energy companies;
- governments;
- investment funds; and
- individuals.
Some buyers want to meet corporate climate targets while others want to support environmental projects.
In Kenya, carbon credits generated by projects have been sold to international corporations. The Kajiado Rangelands Carbon Project, for example, has been linked to credits sold to major companies including Shell and Volkswagen, according to Africa Uncensored’s investigation.
The buyer receives the credit, and the project receives money.
Who Owns the Carbon?
If a company wants to generate carbon credits from a forest, farm or grassland, it needs legal rights to operate on that land and to claim the carbon benefits created by the project.
Kenya’s 2024 Carbon Markets Regulations require projects to identify the ownership of property involved in a project.
Where another person or entity owns property, the project must provide agreements showing the owner’s consent. Community land-based projects must also provide documentation of free, prior and informed consent.
These requirements are particularly important in areas where communities collectively own land.
The dispute surrounding the Kajiado Rangelands Carbon Project illustrates the problem. The land involved had been earmarked for eventual subdivision and individual allotment, but it remained community land at the time. This meant that village and group ranch committees could play an important role in negotiating agreements on behalf of the wider community.
What Is Carbon Offsetting?
Carbon offsetting is the practice of compensating for emissions in one place by paying for emissions reductions or removals somewhere else.
A good example is when a company from Europe producing lots of carbon emissions buys carbon credits from a forest conservation project in Africa. The company then claims that the climate benefit created by the African project helps compensate for its own emissions.
Why Have Carbon Markets Become Controversial?
The biggest concern coming up is that carbon projects create new pressure on land. This is especially sensitive in pastoralist communities whose livelihoods depend on access to large areas of communal grazing land. If a project restricts where livestock can graze, it may directly affect people’s livelihoods.
The Kajiado dispute demonstrated how carbon projects can become entangled with bitter wars over land ownership, subdivision and political influence.
A project may technically obtain approval from a committee or group of representatives. But did everyone affected by the project know what they were agreeing to?
There is also a danger that the people negotiating deals may benefit more than the wider community. A small number of officials, politicians or community leaders may control access to land and information. This makes transparency absolutely crucial in such deals.
The future of Kenya’s carbon market should therefore be forged around real climate benefits, transparent partnership deals and genuine community consent.
Without those three things, carbon credits may become another way of turning Kenya’s natural resources into wealth for outsiders while leaving local communities to deal with the consequences.
